"His
ridiculous stories...
should be selected with the
anecdotes of the learned pig."

A VINDICATION OF
THE RIGHTS OF WOMENby Mary Wollstonecraft

Chapter IIIThe Same Subject Continued

Bodily strength from being the distinction of heroes
is now sunk into such unmerited contempt that men, as well as women, seem
to think it unnecessary; the latter, as it takes from their feminine graces,
and from that lovely weakness, the source of their undue power; and the
former, because it appears inimical to the character of a gentleman.
That they have both, by departing from one extreme
run into another, may easily be proved; but first it may be proper to observe
that a vulgar error has obtained a degree of credit, which has given force
to a false conclusion, in which an effect has been mistaken for a cause.

People of genius have very frequently impaired
their constitutions by study or careless inattention to their health, and
the violence of their passions bearing a proportion to the vigour of their
intellects, the sword's destroying the scabbard has become almost proverbial,
and superficial observers have inferred from thence that men of genius
have commonly weak, or, to use a more fashionable phrase, delicate constitutions.
Yet the contrary, I believe, will appear to be the
fact; for, on diligent inquiry, I find that strength of mind has in most
cases been accompanied by superior strength of body - natural soundness
of constitution - not that robust tone of nerves and vigour of muscles,
which arise from bodily labour, when the mind is quiescent, or only directs
the hands.

Dr. Priestley has remarked, in the preface to his
biographical chart, that the majority of great men have lived beyond forty-five.
And considering the thoughtless manner in which they have lavished their
strength when investigating a favourite science, they have wasted the lamp
of life, forgetful of the midnight hour; or, when lost in poetic dreams,
fancy has peopled the scene, and the soul has been disturbed, till it shook
the constitution by the passions that meditation had raised, - whose objects,
the baseless fabric of a vision, faded before the exhausted eye - they
must have had iron frames.
Shakespeare never grasped the airy danger with a nerveless
hand, nor did Milton tremble when he led Satan far from the confines of
his dreary prison. These were not the ravings of imbecility, the sickly
effusions of distempered brains, but the exuberance of fancy, that "in
a fine frenzy" wandering, was not continually reminded of its material
shackles.

I am aware that this argument would carry me further
than it may be supposed I wish to go; but I follow truth, and still adhering
to my first position, I will allow that bodily strength seems to give
man a natural superiority over woman; and this is the only solid basis
on which the superiority of the sex can be built.

But I still insist that
not only the virtue but the knowledge of the two sexes should be the same
in nature, if not in degree, and that women, considered not only as moral
but rational creatures, ought to endeavour to acquire human virtues (or
perfections) by the same means as men, instead of being educated like a
fanciful kind of half being - one of Rousseau's wild chimeras. [1]

But if strength of body be with some show of reason
the boast of men, why are women so infatuated as to be proud of a defect?

Rousseau has furnished them with a plausible excuse,
which could only have occurred to a man whose imagination had been allowed
to run wild, and refine on the impressions made by exquisite senses; that
they might forsooth have a pretext for yielding to a natural appetite without
violating a romantic species of modesty, which gratifies the pride and
libertinism of man.
Women, deluded by these sentiments, sometimes boast
of their weakness, cunningly obtaining power by playing on the weakness
of men; and they may well glory in their illicit sway, for, like Turkish
bashaws, they have more real power than their masters; but virtue is sacrificed
to temporary gratifications, and the respectability of life to the triumph
of an hour.

Women, as well as despots, have now perhaps more
power than they would have if the world, divided and subdivided into kingdoms
and families, were governed by laws deduced from the exercise of reason;
but in obtaining it, to carry on the comparison, their character is degraded,
and licentiousness spread through the whole aggregate of society. The many
become pedestal to the few.

I, therefore, will venture to assert that till
women are more rationally educated, the progress of human virtue and improvement
in knowledge must receive continual checks.
And if it be granted that woman was not created merely
to gratify the appetite of man, or to be the upper servant who provides
his meals and takes care of his linen, it must follow that the first
care of those mothers or fathers who really attend to the education of
females should be, if not to strengthen the body, at least not to destroy
the constitution by mistaken notions of beauty and female excellence; nor
should girls ever be allowed to imbibe the pernicious notion that a defect
can, by any chemical process of reasoning, become an excellence.

In this respect I am happy
to find that the author of one of the most instructive books that our country
has produced for children, coincides with me in opinion.
I shall quote his pertinent remarks to give the force
of his respectable authority to reason. [2]

But should it be proved that woman is naturally
weaker than man, whence does it follow that it is natural for her to labour
to become still weaker than nature intended her to be? Arguments of this
cast are an insult to common sense, and savour of passion.

The divine right of husbands, like the divine right
of kings, may, it is to be hoped, in this enlightened age, be contested
without danger; and though conviction may not silence many boisterous disputants,
yet, when any prevailing prejudice is attacked, the wise will consider,
and leave the narrow-minded to rail with thoughtless vehemence at innovation.
The mother who wishes to give true dignity of character
to her daughter must, regardless of the sneers of ignorance, proceed on
a plan diametrically opposite to that which Rousseau has recommended with
all the deluding charms of eloquence and philosophical sophistry, for his
eloquence renders absurdities plausible, and his dogmatic conclusions puzzle,
without convincing, those who have not ability to refute them.

Throughout the whole animal kingdom every young
creature requires almost continual exercise, and the infancy of children,
conformable to this intimation, should be passed in harmless gambols that
exercise the feet and hands, without requiring very minute direction from
the head, or the constant attention of a nurse. In fact, the care necessary
for self-preservation is the first natural exercise of the understanding
as little inventions to amuse the present moment unfold the imagination.

But these wise designs of nature are counteracted
by mistaken fondness or blind zeal. The child is not left a moment to its
own direction - particularly a girl and thus rendered dependent. Dependence
is called natural.
To preserve personal beauty - woman's glory - the
limbs and faculties are cramped with worse than Chinese bands, and the
sedentary life which they are condemned to live, whilst boys frolic in
the open air, weakens the muscles and relaxes the nerves.
As for Rousseau's remarks, which have since been echoed
by several writers, that they have naturally, that is, from their birth,
independent of education, a fondness for dolls, dressing, and talking,
they are so puerile as not to merit a serious refutation.
That a girl, condemned to sit for hours together listening
to the idle chat of weak nurses, or to attend at her mother's toilet, will
endeavour to join the conversation, is, indeed, very natural; and that
she will imitate her mother or aunts, and amuse herself by adorning her
lifeless doll, as they do in dressing her, poor innocent babe! is undoubtedly
a most natural consequence.

For men of the greatest abilities have seldom had
sufficient strength to rise above the surrounding atmosphere; and if the
pages of genius have always been blurred by the prejudices of the age,
some allowance should be made for a sex, who, like kings, always see things
through a false medium.

Purposing these reflections, the fondness for dress,
conspicuous in woman, may be easily accounted for, without supposing it
the result of a desire to please the sex on which they are dependent.
The absurdity, in short, of supposing that a girl
is naturally a coquette, and that a desire connected with the impulse of
nature to propagate the species, should appear even before an improper
education has, by heating the imagination, called it forth prematurely,
is so unphilosophical, that such a sagacious observer as Rousseau would
not have adopted it, if he had not been accustomed to make reason give
way to his desire of singularity, and truth to a favourite paradox.

Yet thus to give a sex to mind was not very consistent
with the principles of a man who argued so warmly, and so well, for the
immortality of the soul. But what a weak barrier is truth when it stands
in the way of an hypothesis ! Rousseau respected - almost adored virtue
- and yet he allowed himself to love with sensual fondness.
His imagination constantly prepared inflammable fuel
for his inflammable senses; but, in order to reconcile his respect for
self-denial, fortitude, and those heroic virtues, which a mind like his
could not coolly admire, he labours to invert the law of nature, and broaches
a doctrine pregnant with mischief, and derogatory to the character of supreme
wisdom.

His ridiculous stories, which
tend to prove that girls are naturally attentive to their persons, without
laying any stress on daily example, are below contempt. And that a little
miss should have such a correct taste as to neglect the pleasing amusement
of making O's, merely because she perceived that it was an ungraceful attitude,
should be selected with the anecdotes of the learned pig. [3]

I have, probably, had an opportunity of observing
more girls in their infancy than J. J. Rousseau.
I can recollect my own feelings, and I have looked
steadily around me; yet, so far from coinciding with him in opinion respecting
the first dawn of the female character, I will venture to affirm, that
a girl, whose spirits have not been damped by inactivity, or innocence
tainted by false shame, will always be a romp, and the doll will never
excite attention unless confinement allows her no alternative.

Girls and boys, in short, would play, harmlessly
together, if the distinction of sex was not inculcated long before nature
makes any difference.

I will go further, and affirm, as an indisputable
fact, that most of the women, in the circle of my observation, who have
acted like rational creatures, or shown any vigour of intellect, have accidentally
been allowed to run wild, as some of the elegant formers of the fair sex
would insinuate.

The baneful consequences which flow from inattention
to health during infancy and youth, extend further than is supposed - dependence
of body naturally produces dependence of mind; and how can she be a good
wife or mother, the greater part of whose time is employed to guard against
or endure sickness?

Nor can it be expected that a woman will resolutely
endeavour to strengthen her constitution and abstain from enervating indulgences,
if artificial notions of beauty, and false descriptions of sensibility,
have been early entangled with her motives of action.

Most men are sometimes obliged to bear with bodily
inconveniences, and to endure, occasionally, the inclemency of the elements;
but genteel women are, literally speaking, slaves to their bodies, and
glory in their subjection.

I once knew a weak woman of fashion, who was more
than commonly proud of her delicacy and sensibility. She thought a distinguishing
taste and puny appetite the height of all human perfection, and acted accordingly.
I have seen this weak sophisticated being neglect
all the duties of life, yet recline with self-complacency on a sofa, and
boast of her want of appetite as a proof of delicacy that extended to,
or, perhaps, arose from, her exquisite sensibility; for it is difficult
to render intelligible such ridiculous jargon. Yet, at the moment, I have
seen her insult a worthy old gentlewoman, whom unexpected misfortunes had
made dependent on her ostentatious bounty, and who, in better days, had
claims on her gratitude.

Is it possible that a human creature could have
become such a weak and depraved being, if, like the Sybarites, dissolved
in luxury, everything like virtue had not been worn pressed by precept,
a poor substitute, it is of mind, though it serves as a fence against vice?

Such a woman is not a more irrational monster than
some of the Roman emperors, who were depraved by lawless power. Yet, since
kings have been more under the restraint of law, and the curb, however
weak, of honour, the records of history are not filled with such unnatural
instances of folly and cruelty, nor does the despotism that kills virtue
and genius in the bud, hover over Europe with that destructive blast which
desolates Turkey, and renders the men, as well as the soil, unfruitful.

Women are everywhere in this deplorable state;
for, in order to preserve their innocence, as ignorance is courteously
termed, truth is hidden from them, and they are made to assume an artificial
character before their faculties have acquired any strength. Taught
from their infancy that beauty is woman's sceptre, the mind shapes itself
to the body, and roaming round its gilt cage, only seeks to adore its prison.

Men have various employments and pursuits which
engage their attention, and give a character to the opening mind; but women,
confined to one, and having their thoughts constantly directed to the most
insignificant part of themselves, seldom extend their views beyond the
triumph of the hour. But were their understanding once emancipated from
the slavery to which the pride and sensuality of man and their short-sighted
desire, like that of dominion in tyrants, of present sway, has subjected
them, we should probably read of their weaknesses with surprise.
I must be allowed to pursue the argument a little
further.

Perhaps, if the existence of an evil being were
allowed, who, in the allegorical language of Scripture, went about seeking
whom he should devour, he could not more effectually degrade the human
character, than by giving a man absolute power.

This argument branches into various ramifications.

Birth, riches, and every extrinsic advantage that
exalt a man above his fellows, without any mental exertion, sink him in
reality below them. In proportion to his weakness, he is played upon by
designing men, till the bloated monster has lost all traces of humanity.
And that tribes of men, like flocks of sheep, should quietly follow such
a leader, is a solecism that only a desire of present enjoyment and narrowness
of understanding can solve.
Educated in slavish dependence, and enervated by luxury
and sloth, where shall we find men who will stand forth to assert the rights
of man, or claim the privilege of moral beings, who should have but one
road to excellence? Slavery to monarchs and ministers, which the world
will be long in freeing itself from, and whose deadly grasp stops the progress
of the human mind, is not yet abolished.

Let not men then in the pride of power, use the
same arguments that tyrannic kings and venal ministers have used, and fallaciously
assert that woman ought to be subjected because she has always been so.
But, when man, governed by reasonable laws, enjoys
his natural freedom, let him despise woman, if she do not share it with
him; and, till that glorious period arrives, in descanting on the folly
of the sex, let him not overlook his own.

Women, it is true, obtaining power by unjust means,
by practising or fostering vice, evidently lose the rank which reason would
assign them, and they become either abject slaves or capricious tyrants.
They lose all simplicity, all dignity of mind, in acquiring power, and
act as men are observed to act when they have been exalted by the same
means.

It is time to effect a revolution in female
manners - time to restore to them their lost dignity - and make them, as
a part of the human species, labour by reforming themselves to reform the
world.
It is time to separate unchangeable morals from local
manners.
If men be demi-gods, why let us serve them!
And if the dignity of the female soul be as disputable
as that of animals - if their reason does not afford sufficient light to
direct their conduct whilst unerring instinct is denied - they are surely
of all creatures the most miserable! and, bent beneath the iron hand of
destiny, must submit to be a fair defect in creation.
But to justify the ways of Providence respecting them,
by pointing out some irrefragable reason for thus making such a large portion
of mankind accountable and not accountable, would puzzle the subtilest
casuist.

The only solid foundation for morality appears
to be the character of the Supreme Being; the harmony of which arises from
a balance of attributes - and, to speak with reverence, one attribute seems
to imply the necessity of another. He must be just, because He is wise;
He must be good, because He is omnipotent. For to exalt one attribute at
the expense of another equally noble and necessary, bears the stamp of
the warped reason of man - the homage of passion.
Man, accustomed to bow down to power in his savage
state, can seldom divest himself of this barbarous prejudice, even when
civilisation determines how much superior mental is to bodily strength;
and his reason is clouded by these crude opinions, even when he thinks
of the Deity. His omnipotence is made to swallow up, or preside over His
other attributes, and those morals are supposed to limit His power irreverently,
who think that it must be regulated by His wisdom.

I disclaim that specious humility which, after
investigating nature, stops at the Author. The High and Lofty one, who
inhabiteth eternity, doubtless possesses many attributes of which we can
form no conception; but Reason tells me that they cannot dash with those
I adore - and I am compelled to listen to her voice.

It seems natural for man to search for excellence,
and either to trace it in the object that he worships, or blindly to invest
it with perfection, as a garment.
But what good effect can the latter mode of worship
have on the moral conduct of a rational being? He bends to power; he adores
a dark cloud, which may open a bright prospect to him, to burst in angry,
lawless fury, on his devoted head - he knows not why.

And, supposing that the Deity acts from the vague
impulse of an undirected will, man must also follow his own, or act according
to rules, deduced from principles which he disclaims as irreverent. Into
this dilemma have both enthusiasts and cooler thinkers fallen, when they
laboured to free men from the wholesome restraints which a just conception
of the character of God imposes.

It is not impious thus to scan the attributes of
the Almighty: in fact, who can avoid it that exercises his faculties?
For to love God as the fountain of wisdom, goodness,
and power, appears to be the only worship useful to a being who wishes
to acquire either virtue or knowledge. A blind unsettled affection may,
like human passions, occupy the mind and warm the heart, whilst, to do
justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with our God, is forgotten.
I shall pursue this subject still further, when I
consider religion in a light opposite to that recommended by Dr. Gregory,
who treats it as a matter of sentiment or taste.

To return from this apparent digression.
It were to be wished that women would cherish an affection
for their husbands, founded on the same principle that devotion ought to
rest upon. No other firm base is there under heaven - for let them beware
of the fallacious light of sentiment; too often used as a softer phrase
for sensuality.
It follows then, I think, that from their infancy
women should either be shut up like Eastern princes, or educated in such
a manner as to be able to think and act for themselves.

Why do men halt between two opinions, and expect
impossibilities? Why do they expect virtue from a slave, from a
being whom the constitution of civil society has rendered weak, if not
vicious?

Still I know that it will require a considerable
length of time to eradicate the firmly rooted prejudices which sensualists
have planted; it will also require some time to convince women that they
act contrary to their real interest on an enlarged scale, when they cherish
or affect weakness under the name of delicacy, and to convince the world
that the poisoned source of female vices and follies, if it be necessary,
in compliance with custom, to use synonymous terms in a lax sense, has
been the sensual homage paid to beauty: to beauty of features; for it has
been shrewdly observed by a German writer, that a pretty woman, as an object
of desire, is generally allowed to be so by men of all descriptions; whilst
a fine woman, who inspires more sublime emotions by displaying intellectual
beauty, may be overlooked or observed with indifference, by those men who
find their happiness in their gratification of their appetites.
I foresee an obvious retort - whilst man remains such
an imperfect being as he appears hitherto to have been, he will, more or
less, be the slave of his appetites; and those women obtaining most power
who gratify a predominant one, the sex is degraded by a physical, if not
by a moral necessity.

This objection has, I grant, some force; but while
such a sublime precept exists, as "Be pure as
your heavenly Father is pure," it would seem that the virtues
of man are not limited by the Being who alone could limit them; and that
he may press forward without considering whether he steps out of his sphere
by indulging such a noble ambition.

To the wild billows it has been said, "Thus
far shalt thou go, and no farther; and here shall thy proud waves be stayed."
Vainly then do they beat and foam, restrained by the power that
confines the struggling planets in their orbits, matter yields to the great
governing Spirit.
But an immortal soul, not restrained by mechanical
laws and struggling to free itself from the shackles of matter, contributes
to, instead of disturbing, the order of creation, when, co-operating with
the Father of spirits, it tries to govern itself by the invariable rule
that, in a degree, before which our imagination faints, regulates the universe.

Besides, if women be educated for dependence, that
is, to act according to the will of another fallible being, and submit,
right or wrong, to power, where are we to stop?
Are they to be considered as vicegerents allowed to
reign over a small domain, and answerable for their conduct to a higher
tribunal, liable to error?

It will not be difficult to prove that such delegates
will act like men subjected by fear, and make their children and servants
endure their tyrannical oppression. As they submit without reason, they
will, having no fixed rules to square their conduct by, be kind, or cruel,
just as the whim of the moment directs; and we ought not to wonder if sometimes,
galled by their heavy yoke, they take a malignant pleasure in resting it
on weaker shoulders.

But, supposing a woman, trained up to obedience,
be married to a sensible man, who directs her judgment without making her
feel the servility of her subjection, to act with as much propriety by
this reflected light as can be expected when reason is taken at secondhand,
yet she cannot ensure the life of her protector; he may die and leave
her with a large family.

A double duty devolves on
her; to educate them in the character of both father and mother; to form
their principles and secure their property. But, alas! she has never thought,
much less acted for herself. She has only learned to please [4]
men, to depend gracefully on them; yet, encumbered with children, how is
she to obtain another protector - a husband to supply the place of reason?

A rational man, for we are not treading on romantic
ground, though he may think her a pleasing docile creature, will not choose
to marry a family for love, when the world contains many more pretty creatures.
What is then to become of her?
She either falls an easy prey to some mean fortune-hunter,
who defrauds her children of their paternal inheritance, and renders her
miserable; or becomes the victim of discontent and blind indulgence.
Unable to educate her sons, or impress them with respect
- for it is not a play on words to assert that people are never respected,
though filling an important station, who are not respectable - she pines
under the anguish of unavailing impotent regret. The serpent's tooth enters
into her very soul, and the vices of licentious youth bring her with sorrow,
if not with poverty also, to the grave.

This is not an overcharged picture; on the contrary,
it is a very possible case, and something similar must have fallen under
every attentive eye.

I have, however, taken it for granted, that she
was well disposed, though experience shows, that the blind may as easily
be led into a ditch as along the beaten road.
But supposing, no very improbable conjecture, that
a being only taught to please must still find her happiness in pleasing;
what an example of folly, not to say vice, will she be to her innocent
daughters!

The mother will be lost in the coquette, and, instead
of making friends of her daughters, view them with eyes askance, for they
are rivals - rivals more cruel than any other, because they invite a comparison,
and drive her from the throne of beauty, who has never thought of a seat
on the bench of reason.

It does not require a lively pencil, or the discriminating
outline of a caricature, to sketch the domestic miseries and petty vices
which such a mistress of a family diffuses.
Still she only acts as a woman ought to act, brought
up according to Rousseau's system.
She can never be reproached for being masculine, or
turning out of her sphere; nay, she may observe another of his grand rules,
and, cautiously preserving her reputation free from spot, be reckoned a
good kind of woman.

Yet in what respect can she be termed good?
She abstains, it is true, without any great struggle,
from committing gross crimes; but how does she fulfil her duties? Duties!
In truth she has enough to think of to adorn her body
and nurse a weak constitution.

With respect to religion, she
never presumed to judge for herself; but conformed, as a dependent creature
should, to the effects of a good education! These the virtues of man's
helpmate! [5]

I must relieve myself by drawing a different picture.

Let fancy now present a woman with a tolerable
understanding, for I do not wish to leave the line of mediocrity, whose
constitution, strengthened by exercise, has allowed her body to acquire
its full vigour; her mind, at the same time, gradually expanding itself
to comprehend the moral duties of life, and in what human virtue and dignity
consist.

Formed thus by the discharge of the relative duties
of her station, she marries from affection, without losing sight of prudence,
and looking beyond matrimonial felicity, she secures her husband's respect
before it is necessary to exert mean arts to please him and feed a dying
flame, which nature doomed to expire when the object became familiar, when
friendship and forbearance take place of a more ardent affection.
This is the natural death of love, and domestic peace
is not destroyed by struggles to prevent its extinction. I also suppose
the husband to be virtuous; or she is still more in want of independent
principles.

Fate, however, breaks this tie. She is left a widow,
perhaps without a sufficient provision; but she is not desolate!
The pang of nature is felt; but after time has softened
sorrow into melancholy resignation, her heart turns to her children with
redoubled fondness, and anxious to provide for them, affection gives a
sacred heroic cast to her maternal duties.
She thinks that not only the eye sees her virtuous
efforts from whom all her comfort now must flow, and whose approbation
is life; but her imagination, a little abstracted and exalted by grief,
dwells on the fond hope that the eyes which her trembling hand closed,
may still see how she subdues every wayward passion to fulfil the double
duty of being the father as well as the mother of her children.
Raised to heroism by misfortunes, she represses the
first faint dawning of a natural inclination, before it ripens into love,
and in the bloom of life forgets her sex - forgets the pleasure of an awakening
passion, which might again have been inspired and returned. She no longer
thinks of pleasing, and conscious dignity prevents her from priding herself
on account of the praise which her conduct demands.
Her children have her love, and her brightest hopes
are beyond the grave, where her imagination often strays.

I think I see her surrounded by her children, reaping
the reward of her care. The intelligent eye meets hers, whilst health and
innocence smile on their chubby cheeks, and as they grow up the cares of
life are lessened by their grateful attention.
She lives to see the virtues which she endeavoured
to plant on principles, fixed into habits, to see her children attain a
strength of character sufficient to enable them to endure adversity without
forgetting their mother's example.

The task of life thus fulfilled, she calmly waits
for the sleep of death, and rising from the grave, may say - "Behold,
Thou gavest me a talent, and here are five talents."

I wish to sum up what I have said in a few words,
for I here throw down my gauntlet, and deny the existence of sexual virtues,
not excepting modesty. For man and woman, truth, if I understand the meaning
of the word, must be the same; yet the fanciful female character, so prettily
drawn by poets and novelists, demanding the sacrifice of truth and sincerity,
virtue becomes a relative idea, having no other foundation than utility,
and of that utility men pretend arbitrarily to judge, shaping it to their
own convenience.

Women, I allow, may have different duties to fulfill;
but they are human duties, and the principles that should regulate the
discharge of them, I sturdily maintain, must be the same.

To become respectable, the exercise of their of
their understanding is necessary, there is of character; I mean bow to
the authority slaves of opinion.

In the superior ranks of life how seldom do we
meet with a man of superior abilities, or even common acquirements?
The reason appears to me clear, the state they are
born in was an unnatural one. The human character has ever been formed
by the employments the individual, or class, pursues; and if the faculties
are not sharpened by necessity, they must remain obtuse. The argument may
fairly be extended to women; for, seldom occupied by serious business,
the pursuit of pleasure gives that insignificancy to their character which
renders the society of the great so insipid. The same want of firmness,
produced by a similar cause, forces them both to fly from themselves to
noisy pleasures, and artificial passions, till vanity takes place of every
social affection, and the characteristics of humanity can scarcely be discerned.

Such are the blessings of civil governments, as
they are at present organised, that wealth and female softness equally
tend to debase mankind, and are produced by the same cause; but allowing
women to be rational creatures, they should be incited to acquire virtues
which they may call their own, for how can a rational being be ennobled
by anything that is not obtained by its own exertions?

NOTES

[1]

"Researches into abstract
and speculative truths the principles and axioms of sciences, - in short,
everything which tends to generalise our ideas, - is not the proper province
of women, their studies should be relative to points of practice; it belongs
to them to apply those principles which men have discovered - and it is
their part to make observations which direct men to the establishment of
general principles.
"All the ideas of women, which have not the immediate
tendency to points of duty should be directed to the study of men, and
to the attainment of those agreeable accomplishments which have taste for
their object - for as to works of genius they are beyond their capacity
neither have they sufficient precision or power of attention to succeed
in sciences which require accuracy - and as to physical knowledge, it belongs
to those only who are most active, most inquisitive, who comprehend the
greatest variety of objects; in short, it belongs to those who have the
strongest powers, and who exercise them most, to judge of the relations
between sensible beings and the laws of nature.
"A woman who is naturally weak, and does not
carry her ideas to any great extent, knows how to judge and make a proper
estimate of those movements which she sets to work, in order to aid her
weakness; and these movements are the passions of men. The mechanism she
employs is much more powerful than ours, for all her levers move the human
heart.
"She must have the skill to incline us to do
everything which her sex will not enable her to do herself, and which is
necessary or agreeable to her; therefore she ought to study the mind of
man thoroughly, not the mind of man in general, abstractedly, but the dispositions
of those men to whom she is subject either by the laws of her country or
by the force of opinion.
"She should learn to penetrate into their real
sentiments from their conversation, their actions, their looks and gestures.
"She should also have the art, by her own conversation,
actions, looks, and gestures, to communicate those sentiments which are
agreeable to them without seeming to intend it.

"Men will argue more
philosophically about the human heart - but women will read the heart of
men better than they.
"It belongs to women - if I may be allowed the
expression - to form an experimental morality, and to reduce the study
of man to a system.
"Women have most wit, men have most genius
- women observe, men reason.
"From the Concurrence of both we derive the clearest
light and the most perfect knowledge which the human mind is of itself
capable of attaining.
"In one word, from hence we acquire the most
intimate acquaintance, both with ourselves and others, of which our nature
is capable; and it is thus that art has a constant tendency to perfect
those endowments which nature has bestowed. The world is the book of women."
-- Rousseau's Emilius.

I hope my readers still remember the comparison which I have brought
forward between women and officers.RETURN TO TEXT

[2]

"A
respectable old man gives the following sensible account of the method
he pursued when educating his daughter:

'I endeavoured to give both to her mind
and body a degree of vigour which is seldom found in the female sex.
'As soon as she was sufficiently
advanced in strength to be capable of the lighter labours of husbandry
and gardening I employed her as my constant companion.
'Selene - for that was her name
- soon acquired a dexterity in ill these rustic employments which I considered
with equal pleasure and admiration.
'If women are in general feeble
both in body and mind it arises less from nature than from education. We
encourage a vicious indolence and inactivity which we falsely call delicacy.
Instead of hardening their minds by the severer principles of reason and
philosophy, we breed them to useless art which terminate in vanity and
sensuality.
'In most of the countries which
I had visited they are taught nothing of an higher nature than a few modulations
of the voice or useless postures of the body; their time is consumed in
sloth or trifles and tribulations become the only pursuit capable of interesting
them.
'We seem to forget that it is
upon the qualities of the female sex that our own domestic comforts and
the education of our children must depend.
'And what are the comforts or
the education which a race of being corrupted from their infancy and unacquainted
with all the duties of life are fitted to bestow?
'To touch a musical instrument
with useless skill to exhibit their cultural or affected graces to the
eyes of indolent and debauched young men, to dissipate their husband's
patrimony in riotous and unnecessary expenses these are the only arts cultivated
by women in most of the polished nations I had seen. And the consequences
are uniformly such as may be expected to proceed from such polluted sources
- private and public servitude.
''But Selene's education was regulated
by different views, and conducted upon severer principles - if that can
be called severity which opens the mind to a sense of moral and religious
duties, and most effectually it arms it against the inevitable evils of
life.' "

"I
once knew a young person who learned to write before she learned to read,
and began to write with her needle before she could use a pen. At first,
indeed she took it into her head to make no letter than the O: this letter
she was constantly making of all sizes and always the wrong way. Unluckily
one day as she was intent on this employment, she happened to see herself
in the looking-glass; when, taking a dislike to the constrained attitude
in which she sat while writing she threw away her pen like another Pallas
and determined against making the O any more. Her brother was also equally
averse to writing; it was the confinement however and not the constrained
attitude that most disgusted him."-- Rousseau's Emililus.RETURN
TO TEXT

[4]

"In the union of the
sexes, both pursue one common object, but not in the same manner. From
their diversity in this particular, arises the first determinate difference
between the moral relations of each. The one should be active and strong
the other passive and weak; it is necessary the one should have both the
power and the will and that the other should make little resistance.
"This principle being established it follows
that woman is expressly formed to please the man: if the obligation
be reciprocal also and the man ought to please in his turn it is not so
immediately necessary his great merit is in his power and he pleases merely
because he is strong. This I must confess is not one of the refined maxims
of love; it is however one of the laws of nature prior to love itself.
"If woman be formed to please and be
subjected to man, it is her place, doubtless, to render herself agreeable
to him instead of challenging his passion. The violence of his desires
depends on her charms is by means of these she should urge him to the exertion
of those powers which nature hath given him. The most successful method
of exciting them, is to render such exertion necessary by resistance;
as in that case self-love is added to desire and the one triumphs in the
victory which the other is obliged to acquire. Hence arise the various
modes of attack and defence between the sexes the boldness of one sex and
the timidity of the other - and in a word that bashfulness and modesty
with which nature hath armed the weak in order to subdue the strong."
-- Rousseau's Emilius.

"O how lovely,"
exclaims Rousseau, speaking of Sophia,
"is her ignorance! Happy is he who is destined to instruct her!
She will never pretend to be the tutor of her husband but will be content
to be his pupil. Far from attempting to subject him to her taste she will
accommodate her self to his. She will be more estimable to him than if
she was learned he will have a pleasure in instructing her." -- Rousseau's Emilius.

I shall content myself with simply asking how friendship can subsist
when love expires between the master and his pupil.RETURN
TO TEXT

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